Anyone here Anarchist/Communist?

I just wanted to know if any of you are Anarchists or Communists. If you are I would like to add you to my friends and ask you to join my Anarchist group. If you aren't either then talk to me anyway so I can make you one. ;)

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Capitalism is slavery--those with wealth have more power than those without, and use it to increase their power and wealth. Obviously it isn't how free people naturally interact. Think about it. For centuries our world has lived in other exploitative versions of capitalism, basically the born wealthy taking advantage of the poor masses. These people never had a chance to live naturally--the poor always lived in a state of fear and poverty and ignorance, unable to do anything but work, and the wealthy always lived in a state of opulence and trying to keep it that way. Those who have power are afraid of losing it! And so the cycle continued, until modern day capitalism (No, I'm not saying fuedal lords practiced capitalism or anything, but rather that the systems were based on greed and exploitation).

However, there have been successful anarchist societies before without capitalism. Many tribes, Native Americans, the Celts--these societies were "primitive" but especially in the case of the Celts there was far more freedom especially for women. Just look at Boudicea, the inspiration for our Statue of Liberty...an anarchist leader representing our fascist country, what irony!

The problem with anarchist communities of that time is that their advantage was not big enough to sustain them in the competitive world of limited resources. Thus they were conquered and their culture exterminated. An Altruistic/Intolerant culture generaly trumps an Altruistic/Tolerant culture in natural selection.

Today, it might be more possible, since we might get to avoid wars. Still, it must start to happen everywhere at once or else the cultures that stay in the previous system will be more competitive and initiate war.

Slavery?? Whatever you're refering to is not capitalism. It sounds like you're talking about the system of government control we live under (and that most societies throughout history have lived under). In a true capitalist (i.e. anarchist) society, attempts to initiate force against others would be illegitimate and justly defended against. That includes any socialist or communist attempt to confiscate private property. As I've said before, power is meaningless outside the framework of a coercive government.

It is slavery when you have to work at sub-sustenance level because the "free market" does not have any other positions you can fill and the monopolistic (now that there is no goverment control) megacorporations keep people as wage-slaves.

True monopolies can only exist with the help of government (e.g. utilities, U.S. Postal Service, police, military, court system, etc). In the free market (absent government), there always exists at least the very real potential for competition, thus preventing monopoly prices or wages.

You're kidding?! You honestly believe that there can be no monopoly without goverment?

So, lets say that I own the biggest Software company in the world making operating systems. I'm so succesful that I have 99% of the OS market cornered.
Lets say now that a new company creates a new piece of software, that is quite new to use the internet. This software has so much capability that I NEED to get into that market. However the original piece of software is so good that I can't reach it with my features and I'm afraid that it's going to cut into my potential profits (by possible making the OS less valuable).

What I do then, is I make an inferior piece of software but I package it along with my new OS version that everyone will use. Then all new PCs come built in with my own version of that internet software and as a result, my competitor is left without a market (as no-one even think they need it anymore)

Umm, no, it's not. It's simply not a monopoly unless someone (the government) is using force to protect it from competition. Market share has nothing to do with it. Microsoft (to whom you're obviously referring) could have a 100% market share. Big deal. Unless the government is protecting them from competition, they still have to keep quality high enough and prices low enough that no potential competitor considers it worthwhile to go up against them. Of course, as we all know, Microsoft in reality has plenty of active competition and nowhere close to 99% of either the web browser or OS markets.

Sorry, but I don't think your example is sound. I mean browsers (which I assume you are referring here) are almost never sold for profit. I also don't see how a bundled browser could possibly make the OS less valuable.

Let's rework the example to something like video-editing software (that comes packaged in Macs for example). Let's say Macintosh had a majority of the OS market share and created a sub-standard video-editing software that they decided to bundle with their OS in order to corner the market on that software.

According to you that would leave the competitor without a market because no one would even think they need it. The problem with this is that it only takes one programmer or a few video-editors to say, "We need a better product". All it really takes is someone who believes they can profit by making a better product so they will invest to create a better video editing software and challenge Macintosh's hold on the video-editing software market. Then Mac must either accept the loss, create a better product, or lower their prices so their sub-standard product can be more competitive.

Friar-Zero, you're thinking with current events. 10 years ago browsers were very much a paid product (shareware to be exact). Look up Netscape and the Browser wars. Microsoft was indicted of monopolistic policies for this little stunt.

Browsers were about to take value from the OS since they would become the platform for online services and the OS would not matter anymore. THis is happening now already but MS managed to delay it a good time with their practices.

It is because of Free Software and their resistance to market forces that we are where we are today. Incidentally, Free Software works on socialistic/altruistic mentality.

I can't comment on the browser wars, my knowledge of that is slim to none. However my example included a paid product and bundling. Bundling doesn't effectively eliminate competition nor make market entry impossible.

If in fact, as you say, the bundled product is sub-standard then competing products are more likely to succeed. I don't think your example of bundled software is sound because it doesn't remove competition.

I'm not saying there are no good examples of monopolies, I'm just saying that the example you gave still allows for competition and market pricing.

In fact if, as you say, the bundled product is sub-standard then competing products are more likely to succeed. I don't think your example of bundled software is sound because it doesn't remove competition.

Ah, but you see, this is exactly what happened. Netscape was a superior product at the time and was the same for most of the browser wars but soon after MS bundled IE with Windows, no-one "needed" the superior product because IE was "goog enough".
I mean, look at Opera. It has been the superior product for many years now and until Firefox came, there was just no competition with IE.

Microsoft had many a technologist confused on how it managed to get market share with inferior or buggy products. The truth is, that it was because of marketing and monopolies. It killed Lotus notes the same way, it killed Novell networking the same way.. It's been doing it for ages. Ever heard the phrase "Embrace-Extend-Extinguish" ? If not, look it up.

So when someone tells me that "there is no monopoly without goverment" I can smell the bullshit smell 'till China.